Wandsworth Council won’t meaningfully review whether Putney Bridge junction works until next year, based on the timeline Transport Committee heard Wednesday night.
Critical changes won’t happen until October 2026, it was revealed. And there will not be a review until all options are exhausted. The council will ask for a few months of data to assess whether changes worked, pushing even the hope of re-assessment to a meeting of the Transport Committee in February 2027.
Residents who have endured 15 months of gridlock since the December 2024 redesign face at least another 12 months before councillors assess whether the issue of extreme congestion – created by a flawed junction redesign – can be resolved through a series of small changes or requires an overhaul.
The council has been working hard on resolving the issue. Officers have made 14 interventions, bringing the cost to over £1m. It has conducted walkabouts, adjusted signal timings twice, spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on fixes. The effort is real.
But the piecemeal approach – a change here, waiting for data, a change there, waiting for TfL approval, waiting for committee meetings – combined with the refusal to define what success looks like, what targets must be hit, or what level of failure would trigger fundamental redesign, means residents live with gridlock while accountability keeps getting pushed further away.
Assistant Director of Engineering Henry Cheung told the committee that removal of an unnecessary traffic island that is contributing to delays by restricting traffic flow, is scheduled for October half-term. He noted that changes to bus stops, promised six months ago are still unresolved.
The meeting exposed two other significant problems.
First, Cheung appeared to tell a Conservative councillor that bus journey times are “comparable to pre scheme” – contradicting the council’s own Paper 26-32, which states “AM peak journey times remain above the 23/24 baseline.”
Second, the political divide was stark. Conservative councillors asked the questions proposed by dozens of Putney residents about baseline manipulation, spreading congestion, and whether the design needs scrapping. But Labour councillors defended the scheme’s original goals without addressing the data showing it’s failing for 85% of junction users.
The October timeline
When asked when the traffic island is schedule to be removed, Cheung described summer as an “aspiration” before immediately identifying October half-term as the “fallback.”
“The aspiration is to try and remove the traffic island outside Snappy Snaps and KFC in the summer months, but that is the absolute optimum timetable, because we are still going through the design process with Transport for London,” Cheung said. “A fallback on that date would potentially be October half term, because what we want to do is make sure the works are done under school holidays.”
The island removal should improve flow on Putney High Street northbound, potentially releasing more signal time for Putney Bridge Road and Lower Richmond Road. But the work completes in October 2026. The committee’s November 2026 meeting comes too soon after completion to have the data that officers have repeatedly said they need following previous changes. That pushes meaningful review to the next meeting: February 2027.
The baseline manipulation
TfL has reset its baseline for bus journey times to April 2024 – eight months before the junction was redesigned.
“The bus data, which TfL provided, their baseline currently has been reset to April 24,” Cheung said. “The reason for that is because during the initial baseline periods, that was the COVID period, and a post-COVID period, whereby traffic volume was somewhat reduced. So a more realistic and fair baseline to assess the scheme itself.”
By using April 2024 rather than the 2023/24 academic year or TfL’s five-year historical data, the council avoids comparing current performance to the stable journey times that existed before the scheme broke the junction.
TfL’s five-year data shows bus journey times on Putney High Street northbound averaged around 5-10 minutes from 2019 to 2024, with normal fluctuations. Then the junction changes happened and times spiked dramatically: going up to 30 minutes in some cases.
The factual discrepancy
Cheung told Conservative councillor Caroline de La Soujeole that bus performance had returned to baseline.
“If you look at Appendix 3, look at some of the graphs, the data currently is showing, post scheme is comparable to pre scheme, in terms of journey times, by and large,” Cheung said.
The council’s own Paper 26-32 directly contradicts that statement: “The AM peak journey times remain above the 23/24 baseline, however off-peak and PM peaks align with pre-scheme data.” Even that assertion is questionable, with the council relying on the Christmas period where traffic levels drop dramatically to argue its point.
Morning peak is when congestion matters most. Telling councillors performance is “comparable” when the paper admits AM peak times remain above baseline is a significant contradiction.
And then there is of course the stark reality: while officials discuss stat differentials, thousands of Putney residents are suffering extreme congestion outside their doors every day – and have been saying so increasingly loudly for over a year.
The political divide
Councillor de La Soujeole asked: “It looks like the bus data will show that every corridor is still much slower than before the redesign. So just wondering at what point does that trigger a fundamental reconsideration of the junction design?”
Cheung talked about ongoing monitoring and changes. He did not answer the question about reconsidering the design.
Councillor Daniel Hamilton asked for the junction to stay on the committee agenda. The chair agreed, though May elections mean limited committee activity until autumn.
Labour councillors defended the scheme without engaging with performance data.
Councillor Annamarie Critchard said:
“We all need to remember our colleagues on both sides will agree this was a scheme that is there to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists.”
This deflects from the question residents ask: after 15 months and £1m+ spent, why are 85% of junction users still experiencing worse conditions?
Councillor Tony Belton took a different approach.
“I hate to say this, in a way, 14 elections ago, in 1974, the thing that we argued most about was Putney,” Belton said. “Putney High Street has had masses and masses of consideration ever since.”
Putney has always been difficult, so current failure is normal. This framing avoids examining whether the December 2024 redesign made things worse.
Belton also told residents how to campaign better: “If I was doing a campaign, I’d try and make sure that the third paragraph didn’t always start with exactly the same sentence on each particular letter.”
Residents documenting gridlock, stuck ambulances, and children breathing car fumes aren’t running a campaign. They’re living through daily congestion the council created.
What residents can do
The junction stays on the Transport Committee agenda and the next realistic scrutiny opportunity is autumn 2026, after October’s island removal.
But Wednesday’s meeting revealed the political reality. Labour councillors defended the scheme without engaging with data showing it’s failing. Conservative councillors asked questions about fundamental redesign. Council leader Simon Hogg has stated publicly he won’t approve revisiting the junction design.
With May elections approaching, the political divide matters. Only two Labour councillors represent Putney areas directly affected by the junction. The Conservative opposition has acknowledged the scheme’s failure. November’s committee meeting saw 1,700+ residents reporting worse journeys. Whether residents get meaningful accountability may depend on which party controls the council after May.
This shouldn’t be political. It’s a traffic and health issue affecting tens of thousands of daily journeys. But the committee split Wednesday suggests otherwise.
Beyond local politics, residents can pressure Transport for London, which approved the design and controls signal timings and bus changeover points. TfL holds statutory responsibility for the strategic road network but operates with limited public accountability.
Those living on streets experiencing rat-running (Chelverton Road, Werter Road, Bemish Road, Charlwood Road, Deodar Road, Disraeli Road) can document traffic volumes and air quality impacts.
Putney.news will continue to track and push on this issue until it is resolved.
This is the latest in an ongoing series tracking Putney Bridge junction performance since the December 2024 redesign. Previous coverage includes the £1m total cost, design process failures using pandemic traffic data, signal timing analysis, and resident surveys showing 90.5% worse journeys.
Thank you for your report. The only way to change the situation is to change the people in charge. This situation has persisted long enough. The problem is clear. The problem is of the making of this council and it is stalling to fix for whatever political reasons. This will make voting this council and the specific individuals out of office a priority on 7th May 2026. Going forward it would be helpful in your reports to understand which council members are promoting “delay” or asking for yet more evidence or are resistant to fixing the situation fast so readers know who to vote against